Low Carb Diet Plan Overview

Low carb diets can produce rapid weight loss as well as a number of other health benefits, if they are practiced responsibly. By reducing the number of carbohydrates in your diet, low carb diets aim to achieve a state of ketosis, in which your body is producing energy by burning fat. For this reason, low carb diets are also called ketogenic diets—they are diets conducive to the burning of fat. As with any diet, it is important to understand the benefits as well as the risks of a low carb diet plan before you begin.

When you eat carbohydrates, your body breaks them down into simple sugar: glucose. Your body must then release insulin in order to use the glucose as fuel. Insulin also causes your body to store glucose-energy as fat, and prevents you from using the fat you've already stored for energy. Low carb diets work by decreasing the amount of glucose in your blood, which in turn decreases your insulin levels.

The blood-sugar peaks and valleys we experience when eating a high carbohydrate diet do not occur on a low carb diet. The blood-sugar stability offered by low carb diets can not only be useful to existing diabetics, but can actually prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes.

However, unlike fasting—another situation that incites ketosis—a low carb diet does not slow down your metabolism. On a low carb diet, your body burns your stored fat at the same pace that it was burning off the carbohydrates you ate. This is the reason that low carb diets produce such rapid results.

Successful low carb dieters can expect a number of additional health benefits: improved kidney and liver function, improved ratio of LDL to HDL cholesterol, decreased risk of heart disease, improved circulation, improved blood pressure, decreased risk of digestive disorders, stomach ulcers, and acid reflux, as well as a decreased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. A low carb diet is an excellent way to reset your metabolism and revitalize your body chemistry.

Low carb diets offer a quick, healthy, and relatively easy way to lose weight. There are, however, some drawbacks to low carb dieting. These can include:

• Backsliding: Like any diet plan, a low carb diet provides plenty of opportunity and motivation for backsliding, or reverting to your old, unhealthy eating habits. Backsliding on a low carb diet can cause you to gain back the weight you've lost and more, and often in somewhat less time than it took you to lose the weight. Once you've started a low carb diet, it is important to stick with it. South Beach Nutrition offers a line of diet pills that work: highly nutritive low carb diet enhancing supplements that can help you control your carbohydrate-cravings without stimulants.
• Constipation: Low carb diets are notorious for causing moderate to severe constipation. For this reason it is very important to take supplements containing dietary fiber while on a low carb diet.
• Ugly ‘Leftover’ Flab: Low carb diets can help you shed pounds of fat very quickly, but cannot help you build lean muscle mass out of what's left. The result: ugly flab, droopy skin and muscles. Losing the weight is not enough to look and feel your best. In order to convert your leftover flab into attractive, toned muscle mass, be sure to exercise regularly and to supplement your low carb diet with muscle-building diet enhancers from South Beach Nutrition.
• Electrolyte Imbalance: One of the first signs of ketosis is rapid loss of water-weight. This can result in severe electrolyte imbalance that can affect the results of your diet by interfering with your ability to metabolize fat and carbohydrates, and cause any number of other health problems as well. It is vital that your diet plan include supplements that both replenish and increase the bioavailability of your body's depleted minerals. South Beach Nutrition's excellent diet enhancers contain natural ingredients to accomplish both of these essential functions.
• Calcium Loss: The process of burning off excess fat and protein is known to cause a sudden and severe loss of calcium, increasing the risk of osteoperosis. South Beach Nutrition's diet enhancing supplements provide additional sources of calcium as well as complimentary nutrients that aid calcium absorption.

In many cases, the benefits of a low carb diet far outweigh the risks. Remember, though, that even if you decide not to try a low carb diet, you can still enjoy the benefits of South Beach Nutrition's safe and effective diet enhancers as a healthy, nutritious way to lose weight. While the effects of these supplements alone will not take place as quickly as when combined with regular exercise and a low carb diet, you will still enjoy rapid results and improved overall health.

If you're ready to start your low carb diet program, take the time to compare and contrast the two most widely regarded low carb diet plans, the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet to decide which one is right for you.